Accessing the Source of Happiness within

Vedic Meditation gives us the opportunity to step out of Object Referral Consciousness, and to embrace Self Referral Consciousness.

Object Referral Consciousness is characterised by the conviction that someone (or something) other than oneself is the source and the cause of our happiness; likewise, someone (something, many people, many things) other than oneself is the source and the cause of our unhappiness or our circumstances in life. Object Referral Consciousness doesn’t take responsibility for one’s own experience and attributes blame on others: the opinion is that; ’I am not responsible for my suffering; the behaviours and shortfalls of others is the cause of my suffering’. Consequently, to minimise suffering, it is believed that absolutely everything must be controlled; all experiences, all thinking, all actions, all attitudes, in all people. This is obviously not sustainable because there is no body and no thing that was purpose built to make us happy.

During the practice of Vedic Meditation, we allow the mind to naturally and effortlessly de-excite, settle down and experience bliss consciousness. Consistently experiencing this, over time, yields a state of baseline inner happiness or true and lasting happiness which is one of the features of Self Referral Consciousness.

Self Referral Consciousness is the sustainable approach to happiness because it is based on:
- tapping into the source of happiness within (the type of happiness that is not circumstantial).
- and then attracting to our lives all of the desirable things and circumstances that reflect our true state of happiness.
In this model, we cultivate our happiness from within; it’s lasting - no matter what is happening around us.

Self Referral Consciousness is characterised by the following understanding, based on experience:
‘I am Totality; my consciousness is cosmic, It inhabits not only this human body, it inhabits all bodies and all things.
I am Self-sufficient.
I am Nature’s intelligence Itself,
I am the fountainhead of all creativity.
I cannot be made happy; I have Self-sufficient happiness.’

With love,
Limor

Object-Referral versus Self-Referral

There are two kinds of happiness: self-referral & object-referral.

When our sole source of happiness involves our dependency on "objects" (that is, "non-self"; for example, "a loveable other" behaving ideally for us) then that is object-referral happiness.  Our happiness becomes dependent on another person behaving according to rather strict relating guidelines.  The guidelines are designed to achieve zero deviation from the behavioural formula that has manifested some degree of happiness for us.  We do not want change, because change threatens our access to happiness.

The problem with all this begins in two areas (and rapidly engulfs the whole of life):

1) no thing or person is designed to sustain non-change or non-variation from a formula that merely brings happiness to another; evolution enforces progressive change,

and

2) it is an unsustainable living technique to source our personal inner experience in another, to make them responsible for what we are experiencing.  Attempts to do this will turn one into a control fanatic, attracting destruction to that method of relating.

The behaviour of another is neither the source of one’s happiness nor the source of one’s suffering. “Others" are not responsible for our internal experience.

Self-referral happiness is the true fulfilment that comes from the mind incorporating the inner bliss of Being into our conscious daily experience.  Self-referral happiness allows us to have adaptive responses to demands (changes of expectation) and find within ourselves solutions to life's challenges.

In the words of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

“A strong mind is tolerant; a weak mind is easily overcome by the surroundings. If one doubts another's behaviour, one will continue to have doubts even if he expresses love & joy when one meets him, because the doubts were present before the conversation started.  So a doubting or unkind mind fails to enjoy even the joyfulness and sincerity of the prevailing surroundings.

To improve relationships we must first improve our own minds and then we shall begin to behave well.  Surroundings respond to us best if we are grounded in the art of Being, which is the technique that places our lives on a high level so that we naturally and innocently behave well in harmony and joyfulness.

Contact with Being (through meditation) not only improves and satisfies the individual life but improves the atmosphere, increases harmony and reduces fear, hatred, tension, cruelty, and antagonism.  When Being is infused into the minds of individuals, social relationships improve in the most automatic and natural way, great harmony is produced in the atmosphere.”

With love,
Limor